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Greetings, this was a thread suggested by PaladinTom and inspired by Anita Sarkeesian's Tropes vs Women series.

This is a space specifically dedicated to reviewing games through the lens of problematic tropes. In the most recent TvW, many forum users were appalled at the various examples Sarkeesian displayed throughout the video. The purpose of reviews in this thread is going to be to take current games and hold them up to the microscope. Does this game utilize retrograde / destructive tropes? If so, what is the full context and how bad is it? Is the development team diverse? Does the game have or allow for protagonists who aren't male, and does it go beyond binary gender options?

If you'd like to participate, simply write a review for a recently released game, with a focus on how it fails or succeeds in the way it handles the tropes outlined in the TvW series, or tropes which are problematic for you that haven't been covered in the series. If you enjoyed the game, but found one or two moments where the game lazily utilized a trope, talk about it here. If you regretted the purchase and want to help others vote with their wallet and boycott a game, talk about it here. If the game was fresh, creative in its storytelling, and trope free, talk about it here.

We'd also like to encourage people to reach out to Devs, and share their reviews. The goal of all of this to help inch the ball of progress down the field one voice at a time and to keep each other informed about the new games coming out that are challenging the status quo and avoiding the traditional narrative pitfalls that have plagued many games in the past..

A few simple ground rules......

-This is not a place to argue about the validity of the Tropes vs Women web series
-If someone shares their emotional reaction to content in a game, this is not a place to argue with them about whether or not the content is actually problematic.
-If possible, try to keep these reviews to more recently released game (within a year) and make sure to indicate how far into the game you've gotten.

What it gets wrong: The writing in the game is entirely done by men. As far as I can tell, InXile is pretty male heavy. So far the writing seems good and inclusive (I can't speak to much outside the initial areas) but I hope that InXile diversifies its team for Torment. There is also one encounter in High Pool that is a bit of a damsel in distress type of encounter.

I am conflicted about this section here. While I think it's a useful rubric by which the issue of Diversity in the Industry is to be judged, I think we all too commonly fall into the "Write what you know!" trap that leads to the erroneous notion that you need Person X to write for X.

What it gets wrong: The writing in the game is entirely done by men. As far as I can tell, InXile is pretty male heavy. So far the writing seems good and inclusive (I can't speak to much outside the initial areas) but I hope that InXile diversifies its team for Torment. There is also one encounter in High Pool that is a bit of a damsel in distress type of encounter.

I am conflicted about this section here. While I think it's a useful rubric by which the issue of Diversity in the Industry is to be judged, I think we all too commonly fall into the "Write what you know!" trap that leads to the erroneous notion that you need Person X to write for X.

I do quite like the sentiment behind this thread, however.

I don't think that's what they meant. Just simply that diversity is better and they're lacking it. That said, to me this is a criticism of the company and not the game.

Cloquette wrote:

I feel like I'm being asked to play chess but before I can make my next move, I have to listen to the innermost feelings of my queen-side rook.

I just finished Mighty Switch Force! 2 on the 3DS. It released last year on the 3DS and the Wii U as a downloadable game. From a feminist perspective, it's a mixed bag leaning toward problematic.

You play as firefighter Patricia Wagon who plunges into burning puzzles to save five women, the Hooligan Sisters, from fires, malevolent robots, and mud. In a sense, the Hooligan Sisters are a variation on the Damsel in Distress trope as they've been captured by monsters or have gotten themselves stranded and need to be rescued. But it's refreshing that it's a woman doing the rescuing and that she's using the traditionally masculine verbs of gaming: running, jumping, shooting, and puzzle-solving.

There actually aren't any men in the game at all. The closest you get is a masculinely-shaped robot who transports Patricia out of each level at the end and who appears in the background of some of the game's results screens doing things like grilling hamburgers in his chest. He's clearly in a supportive role to Patricia. There's never any doubt about her capability or her toughness.

Undermining all of that somewhat is the game's artwork and character designs which tend toward a retro cheesecake sort of look. Nothing is meant to be titillating, but short shorts and bared midriffs abound, and Patricia's outfit inexplicably leaves her legs bare despite being a firefighting outfit.

I can't remember if this is a screen from the game or promotional art, but it's representative of the overall design:

What probably bothers me most, however, is that the game does something similar to the old Metroid games where the player is rewarded for doing well by Patricia wearing a skimpier outfit. If you finish the game with all of its hidden collectible babies found (babies that, surprisingly, Patricia literally punts off the screen), you get the option to play levels with Patricia in her "gym clothes". They're labeled as "gym clothes", of course, but they're essentially a bikini and don't much resemble the kind of gym clothes that real women wear.

I've always despised that strip-poker mechanic where the better you do, the less your character wears, and I really, sincerely wish the developers had left it out. I love the idea of playing with alternate costumes. I hate the idea of those costumes being so scanty.

Yeah, my main purpose in pointing that out is that the writers of the game are all men. So far, I'd say they are doing a great job at being inclusive in their handling of women in the game, but I want to flag it because it is problematic to have a team of writers and not have even one woman on that team. I should note that according to wikipedia, they do have a woman on the design team, Liz Danforth - who is a writer herself.

I personally do not at all think a person is limited by their own experiences in writing. I think it is easy for young writers to fall into that trap, but if you can't put yourself into someone else's shoes, I'd wager your writing career is going to be mighty short. As a writer I tend to think "write what you know" is a recipe for boring writing. "Write what you are afraid to write" is a much better mantra, IMO.

Gremlin: Someone else could maybe pick the default characters and be on their way, but I am not that person

Verdict: I was curious if the F1 games let you play as a female driver, and the answer is no. Apparently they used to (F1 2010 IIRC), but the depth of 2013's character customization is limited to your name, region, and helmet. In the cutscenes you'll always be a man. Sorry, Susie Wolff and Simona de Silvestro.

WRC 4

Time played: None! I watched a different LP.

Verdict: Same question. Same answer! All your driver and co-driver portrait options are of men, and you'll always be referred to as male. Two of the dozen available managers are women, so there's that. Sorry, Michèle Mouton and Ilka Minor.

-----

What makes this particularly aggravating is that these real-life sports, as I've alluded, do allow women to compete with men—even if it's been historically rare, it's still permissible. And when half your potential audience might be interested in the fantasy of being a professional racer, why not allow them to? On top of that, it has to be technically trivial to allow it: a second head and a check for which pronoun to use. Job done.

Gravey, I'm never sure, on a scale of 1-10, just how serious you are when you post. – Minarchist

Yeah, this is definitely an area where things could be improved so easily.

I'm very much hoping that one of my most anticipated games for next month, Forza Horizon 2, takes the chance to do so. In the core Forza series, the player's in game representation wears a dark visored crash helmet and a fire suit, and could conceivably be of any gender. However, to suit Forza Horizon's more laid back, car culture instead of racing culture aesthetic the helmet and fire suit were gone, replaced with a very generic white male character model.

Now, the player's in game representation is certainly of very little consequence -- mostly, it's the arms you see holding the wheel in cockpit mode, although it does appear in a few "flavor" cutscenes (i.e., scenes that set the tone of the world and have no character development or dialog, as the player's character is 100% a cipher) -- but that means it would be all that much easier to just do a second model and have an option in menu to switch between them (as Elite: Dangerous does, for example). Of course, adding a female character model would still leave all kinds of other representation issues, but it would be a nice start. But hey, how about adding in a crash helmet and fire suit option, eh?

In any case, I don't have high hopes for Forza Horizon 2 in this regard -- all the marketing materials so far still show the same white male character driving the cars -- but I suppose we'll see at the end of September.

Thanks for the posts about racing games. I'm not big into sports games and so hadn't considered how they might or might not be making progress toward fair representation.

One of the latest EA NHL games let you choose a male or female player in their Be A Pro mode. Progress! Maybe? A very frustrating part of these developments is that they're dispiritingly inconsistent. I couldn't tell you which NHL game did that, but even if I could, that's no guarantee that the next one will too. Codemasters lets you play as a woman, then takes it away, in some of their series, but not all, even though all their games share some of the same character customization assets (when they deign—I mean "remember"—to include them).

If sports franchises are supposed to be iterative, you'd think these features would be additive and predictable. F1 2013 includes Classic Mode, F1 2014 won't—fine, maybe it's a licensing thing or whatever, that they can't use those 80s and 90s cars in another game. But you don't have to license gender—if you did it in one game, you can do it in all games!

zeroKFE wrote:

Now, the player's in game representation is certainly of very little consequence -- mostly, it's the arms you see holding the wheel in cockpit mode, although it does appear in a few "flavor" cutscenes (i.e., scenes that set the tone of the world and have no character development or dialog, as the player's character is 100% a cipher)

Unfortunately, Forizon goes one further than only providing a male driver, and is built around stroking a presumed male player ego: hot polygonal women in short shorts and so-sensible stilettos everywhere, Alice purring encouragement. I don't expect Forizon 2 to be any different.

Gravey, I'm never sure, on a scale of 1-10, just how serious you are when you post. – Minarchist

Unfortunately, Forizon goes one further than only providing a male driver, and is built around stroking a presumed male player ego: hot polygonal women in short shorts and so-sensible stilettos everywhere, Alice purring encouragement. I don't expect Forizon 2 to be any different.

No kidding -- the sexism inherent in the car culture they are representing is definitely worthy of examination, but that's a whooooole other can of worms.

Unfortunately, Forizon goes one further than only providing a male driver, and is built around stroking a presumed male player ego: hot polygonal women in short shorts and so-sensible stilettos everywhere, Alice purring encouragement. I don't expect Forizon 2 to be any different.

No kidding -- the sexism inherent in the car culture they are representing is definitely worthy of examination, but that's a whooooole other can of worms.

I actually thought Forizon did an excellent job of depicting the crushing sexism of their subject matter. I expect a car festival to be full of screaming douchenozzles, so seeing it shown as such felt about right.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

You've never known true joy until you've shaken a lich stick at someone.

On the flipside of the car culture game is Motorsport Manager for iOS. This game was apparently a 1 man effort and is so slick that that fact is really hard to believe. Its gender equality seems to be truly 50/50. From drivers to team managers to sponsors, fans everything else you get random portraits and names and it seems to be just a non-issue in the game.

Unfortunately, Forizon goes one further than only providing a male driver, and is built around stroking a presumed male player ego: hot polygonal women in short shorts and so-sensible stilettos everywhere, Alice purring encouragement. I don't expect Forizon 2 to be any different.

No kidding -- the sexism inherent in the car culture they are representing is definitely worthy of examination, but that's a whooooole other can of worms.

I actually thought Forizon did an excellent job of depicting the crushing sexism of their subject matter. I expect a car festival to be full of screaming douchenozzles, so seeing it shown as such felt about right.

Ha, I'm willing to believe that. There are two or three woman NPC drivers in Forizon though (I only remember Ramona Cravache because I won a race by flipping her upside down), so by the gameworld's own rules, female participants are allowed—and wouldn't it be all the sweeter to crush all those male drivers as a woman?

Gravey, I'm never sure, on a scale of 1-10, just how serious you are when you post. – Minarchist

Time played: Over 40 hours so far, I'm through the eight gyms and working on Victory Road (i.e. the "final dungeon").

What it gets right: In line with all the games since Sapphire/Ruby on the GBA, players can choose to play the game as a boy or girl.

The cast of enemies is quite gender-balanced, with roughly the same number of males and females. In addition, their personalities are diverse; some sitting within traditional gender stereotypes and some not. For example, the first gym leader you face is Viola, who is a photographer/collecter of Bug-type pokemon. Whereas the sixth trainer, Valerie, loves to find beauty throughout the world and specializes in Fairy-type pokemon. The final champion of the game is also a woman, Diantha. None of the plot-related girls/women in the game have skimpy/"sexy" costume designs (i.e. put there specifically to titillate boys). The few that are at all revealing are respectfully designed around the character's theme. There are minor NPC's throughout appropriate portions of the game wearing normal swimsuits (male and female) but not posed with the intention of titillation either.

In other words, the game is very family-friendly, both in presentation (i.e. G-rated) and in presenting a healthy, balanced view of the diversity of both men and women.

There's very little in the way of abuse of tropes such as damsel-in-distress. In fact, several times throughout the game your chief rival (your friend Sabrina) partners up with you to face challenges. This is not in order for you to save her, but rather for the two of you to work together for the greater good.

What it gets wrong: Within the game, there is a wide variety of clothing options to purchase and pick from to customize your trainer's appearance. However, the clothing selection is segregated between boys' clothing and girls' clothing, with the girls' options heavily emphasizing frilly/flowery/"cute" clothes. There are some androgynous options for girls, but very little compared to the options that boys are given. Even the trainer bag options are gendered, with boys having travel bag styles to choose from and girls having mostly purse styles.

While it is not a gender issue, there is also the problem that the body customization options given to the player at the start of the game range from white to very light brown; basically, the range you typically see from Japan-developed games, which is very exclusionary to anyone with brown skin or darker (note that this is discriminatory to a great many ethnic groups around the globe).

Verdict: There are a few flaws as noted, but overall this is a fantastic example of a game that avoids many negative tropes against women, and the game's emphasis on the theme of teamwork, friendship, and respect for all of nature make it a great game for children and adults alike.

Unfortunately, Forizon goes one further than only providing a male driver, and is built around stroking a presumed male player ego: hot polygonal women in short shorts and so-sensible stilettos everywhere, Alice purring encouragement. I don't expect Forizon 2 to be any different.

No kidding -- the sexism inherent in the car culture they are representing is definitely worthy of examination, but that's a whooooole other can of worms.

At a previous job I knew a group of NASCAR fans that wouldn't shut up about Danica Patrick, this was when she first started becoming popular. Their discussions were never about how good of a driver she was, it was always about how hot she looked and how hot it was for a good looking woman to be driving a racing vehicle.

If you played the Injustice: Gods Among Us mobile game, then you get the basic idea of the game mechanics here. A surprisingly good use of touch controls using swipes and taps to control Bats in a Street Fighter-like fighting game.

Linking your WB-ID account unlocks a couple of Batsuits, and achieving certain goals unlocks goodies in the console game (and vice versa). It's 'main campaign' is fairly short, but it has high replay value with daily and weekly challenges, and hunting for collectibles to upgrade the various Batsuits you can unlock or purchase with in-game currency.

The Trope: well, there's really only one. One lady in the game that is. As is somewhat usual for a Batman game, it's high on masculine octane with various sizes of beefy enemies trying to knock out a beefy Batman. The sole lady in the game is Copperhead, and she is the typical femme-fatale vampy villain that is pretty f*cking boring at this point. Scantily clad in midriff-baring-hip-hugging leather to show off her oogabas and hips, her special attacks involve literally wrapping herself around Batman, with the camera conveniently placed to show off her legs or ass.

If she defeats Batman, you get treated to a little cutscene of her laying down suggestively purring some bon mots into his ear.

At the end of this shot, she does a high kick fully spreading her legs.

Trigger Notes: Game contains implied off and on-screen violence against women and in one case represents the aftermath of this on a character model, including at least two cases where the violence "fixes" the women being hit.

Posted about this in a different thread (and as a collection of moderately sarcastic screen-shots on the steam feed) but it definitely fits in here.

Demonica is a typical German/Eastern European RPG in which you play a single named character (by which I mean white, twenty-something, shaved head, no personality) with no physical customization (and no options to play as a female version either) just a choice in stats and skills as you level up. Mechanically it's fine. Nothing remarkable but it wasn't too much of a slog to get through to the end.

Where the problems REALLY arise is in the story and characters. They've tried to go for something "dark and gritty" but ended up with something really rather creepy. Here are some highlights (copied some of these across form the other tropes thread):

- Game starts right off the bat with the damsel trope. The players sister has run off to escape an arranged marriage with a high ranking (corrupt) paladin so that the family can gain citizenship and stay in the city. As we find out later there are other ways of getting this citizenship (join the watch / local underworld) but this is clearly the easiest option for everyone involved. Except the sister of course.

- Before heading into the cave system to rescue aforementioned sister, the PC has a quite unbelievable conversation with your father about sis's virginity. They think she's run off to be with a stranger so that she can lose it and thus render the marriage null and void. Upon finding her, it's one of the first things you ask her about to make sure she's still 'intact'. This crops up a couple of times and never gets any less uncomfortable.

- there is a brothel, and every female character model in that part of the city is a cliche "skanky street walker" type, including a rotund brothel madame.

- the incest angle: turns out your character and his sister kinda really want to bone each other a lot. Later though it's mentioned that she's not really his literal sister so - phew! crisis avoided, right? NOPE. LATER still it turns out they ARE actually blood relatives (same father). Soon after that they carry out the whole promise of boning because sure why not. This never stops being REALLY CREEPY.

- The ONLY female NPC with more than a few lines in the main city is a raggedy peasant woman who's husband abandoned her. She still pines and waits for him to loyally return. The only reason you talk to her is to get her to distract a dangerous criminal who's already been harassing her for sex in exchange for "protection".

I'm spoiler tagging the rest which refers to various levels of violence against women:

Spoiler:

- a female necromancer you help at one point is killed and, in her dying breath, gives you permission to violate her body after she dies, and to tell her about it in the afterlife later. This is ALSO one of your other half-sisters.

- before the wedding, the pre-mentioned asshole severely beats your sister making it clear that this is going to be the norm from now on once they are married. The character model for your sister REALLY looks like she's been severely beaten about the face.

- Also he's been murdering prostitutes then reanimating them as mute, undead sex slaves that makes the local brothel extremely popular. One you fix this problem, everyone starts complaining that the brothel is losing a lot of business and is no fun anymore.

- after a long period of being kidnapped (2nd damsel use in the game), eventually your sister turns evil(tm). Mostly you know this by the fact she's wearing skimpier, spikier armour. Your way of curing this is to literally slap her across the face after which she apologises and stops being evil.

- The main villain of the piece, an elf woman in slinky skin-hugging robes is hostile to you until you beat her close to death, at which point she becomes completely submissive to you and devoting herself to your cause.

I'm probably forgetting a lot but that's probably enough to get the idea across that this game...might have a few problems.

The game is violent and combat focused in general. In the early going I haven't encountered rape or anything that is specifically violence towards women. There is a bestiality reference at one point.

Time played: About 30 hours of an earlier build of the beta, though I've really only dipped my toe in the first ten hours or so (done a lot of replays and party building.)

What it gets right: The game allows for gender choice for your PCs (though that choice is limited to male and female.) There are tons of great recruitable female NPCs, and most of them have backgrounds and personalities that are just as developed (and arguably more developed) than male characters. Angela Deth in particular is one of the heroes from the original game, and she takes a central role in the events of WL2. She is a well written, flawed, fully fleshed out character who figures centrally into the plot of the game.

As far as non-recuitable NPCs, the game does a great job with gender balance. So far about half of the NPCs with unique dialogue are female, including central characters, such as Dr. Kathy Lawson who runs the Ag Center, and Kate Preston at High Pool. They are both the key NPCs of their respective locations and the quest threads of those locations. The game also doesn't seem to mind sharing its villains among men and women, as there is an early "boss" character named Jackhammer, a raider who has freaking jackhammer for an arm! Pretty badass.

When creating characters, players have a lot of custimization options - including dresses / skirts / etc. that can be worn by characters of either gender. The character portraits of NPC women are refreshingly non-sexualized.

What it gets wrong: The writing in the game is entirely done by men. As far as I can tell, InXile is pretty male heavy. So far the writing seems good and inclusive (I can't speak to much outside the initial areas) but I hope that InXile diversifies its team for Torment. There is also one encounter in High Pool that is a bit of a damsel in distress type of encounter.

Possible Warnings: I have heard that further down the road there is a brothel in one of the towns, and the brothel is Dragon Age esque (IE, not just women, anyone will sleep with any character.) Generally, I'm over brothels in games (I'd love to see a study showing the percentage of women who work at brothels in real life vs the percentage of women who work at brothels in film, TV, and games), but given that Wasteland 2 seems to have plenty of women that are heroes, villains, scientists, leaders, and soldiers - I'm optimistic it is at least handled tastefully. As far as I've heard there are isn't any encounter or mission where prostitutes are killed. There is one character who is pretty sexist, and his sexism is one of many things used to illustrate his overall jerkiness. He doesn't commit any violent acts, he just speaks like a chauvenistic lout.

Verdict: Not perfect, but leaps and bounds better than most games on the trope front. I'm particularly happy to see that so many of the key NPCs are women, and that the female characters are interesting, flawed people instead of just generically "strong and kickass."

Full disclosure: I'm very excited about this game, and have been for a long, long time. I don't think I'm clouding my own judgment, but I might be. Also, I've only played the early missions - so I have no idea if it gets trope-y later on, or continues to do a decent job not falling into lazy troping.

Gremlin: Someone else could maybe pick the default characters and be on their way, but I am not that person

[i]Violence against women: Harassment and one character murdered off-screen (no audio). [/i]

Time Played:
Full completion on story and collectibles in Seattle, a few runs of the challenge mode.

What it gets right:
-Protagonist and the frame for the narration are both female. Both are clearly framed as being very real and complex people. The only time the character is in need of help, it's because she's hit a brick wall she doesn't have the skills to overcome, she is helped by another female character and the two of them work together rather than the protagonist being saved. This is a pretty marked improvement from her appearance in Second Son where she suffers from being the most attractive female trope and thus automatically falling within the romantic interest trope too.
Full cast = 5 characters, 3 are female (2 are supporting characters), 2 are male (1 is a supporting character).
-The protagonist's two outfits are both all covering (though her street clothes are some pretty short shorts, that is mitigated by nearly opaque leggings with only some minor tearing to them). Both of the two other female characters are also normally dressed with no ridiculousness at all (one is in full military regalia with no ridiculous female armor tropes, the other is in a hoodie and jeans).

What it gets wrong:
-The antagonist is very clearly a complete douchebag PUA filled with all kind of foul things being said that made me want to punch him and I could see a lot of his crap being triggers for those who suffered harassment. While him being a slimeball of some sort nicely frames him for his transition from Act 1 to Act 2 and 3/the finale... this is established in plenty of other ways, and the sexual references and constant attempts to get Fetch to sleep with him were just really uncomfortable.
-I hesitate to bring this one up, but it seems like a thing that was wrong to me at least... Fetch's reliance on her brother. While moments of stress being what unlocks new powers is a very interesting mechanic, the fact that these moments of stress only occur when she doesn't have her brother at her side seems... I dunno, it suggests to me that her strength is really her brother's strength, rather than her own, and I kind of hate that. Obviously, he's trying to protect her, that's why he told her they needed to run away from their parents trying to turn her in... but, I dunno, at the same time, it ties almost her entire arc to how much she needs her brother, and after that about how much her future life is going to be about her brother.

Verdict:
Pretty good, but not great. Would be great if we saw more of her outside of her brother's sphere of influence and standing alone. I'm hoping more DLC will be released later featuring Augustine, as I feel like she is a much better female character in terms of agency and being her own person separate from everyone else around her (somewhat by necessity for being the conduit working with the government by choice and design, but also for why she was doing so, which I won't mention here for spoilers).

"What forest are you talking about?! I can't see anything with all these trees in the way!" ~Farscry

This kind of thread is why I never bother to read game reviews elsewhere anymore. (And the one hour review thread, and the catch-all threads...) I don't have time to review them this week but there's a couple of games I think bear discussing here, on both sides of the list. Like Crusader Kings.

My previous comment is best construed in the light of...heading off what I saw as the obvious criticism at the pass, and pushing for a statement of philosophy. This thread makes me wish I'd been playing something more recent and relevant. I could go on about what it's like playing a woman PC in GTA Online, which is debatably somewhat distinct from the single player, but I suspect is too similar to other MMO or quasi-MMO experiences except in certain, persnickety and deeply nuanced ways to be of much value.

Planetside 2: Trigger warning for violence against women technically, but it's not graphic

MMOFPS, every character is a PC so technically women characters are getting killed by the hundreds every minute, men probably double that, I'm not sure of the exact men to women ratio of the characters or real players.

Handles tropes just fine so far. Women characters equally deadly, equally vulnerable. I'm not aware of any significant difference in the voice packs on sale as I do not buy that sort of thing.

I play with female avatars exclusively and name them female as well, two of them them are named after women famous for taking off their clothes.
I've been asked if I was a girl. hahahahaha-funny every time. I've been asked if I was really "her". I've had others say they like my choice in character name and enjoy the work of the ones I'm named after.

Planetside 2: Trigger warning for violence against women technically, but it's not graphic

MMOFPS, every character is a PC so technically women characters are getting killed by the hundreds every minute, men probably double that, I'm not sure of the exact men to women ratio of the characters or real players.

Handles tropes just fine so far. Women characters equally deadly, equally vulnerable. I'm not aware of any significant difference in the voice packs on sale as I do not buy that sort of thing.

I play with female avatars exclusively and name them female as well, two of them them are named after women famous for taking off their clothes.
I've been asked if I was a girl. hahahahaha-funny every time. I've been asked if I was really "her". I've had others say they like my choice in character name and enjoy the work of the ones I'm named after.

Equal opportunity shooters are not an issue in my book, assuming they have similar uniforms for both genders. They're actually the point...everybody is a fighter. Everybody gets a choice in that fighting.

To be more explicit:
Cutscenes where the good guy is established as the good guy as you watch him stop a rape in progress. Very freaking bad.